The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Veterans Health
Administration, Health Revenue Center, Topeka, Kansas (Employer) filed a request
for assistance with the Federal Service Impasses Panel (Panel) to consider a
negotiation impasse under the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute
(Statute), 5 U.S.C. § 7119, between it and Local 906, American Federation of
Government Employees (Union or AFGE).

After investigation of the request for assistance, which
concerns official time for the local Union president, the Panel determined that
the dispute should be resolved through an informal conference by telephone with
Panel Member Richard B. Ainsworth. The parties were informed that if no
settlement was reached, Member Ainsworth would notify the Panel of the status of
the dispute, including the parties’ final offers and his recommendations for
resolving the impasse. After considering this information, the Panel would
resolve the dispute by taking whatever action it deems appropriate, which could
include the issuance of a binding decision.

Pursuant to this procedural determination, Member Ainsworth
convened a teleconference with the parties on April 19, 2006. The parties,
however, were unable to reach a voluntary resolution of their dispute. The Panel
has now considered the entire record, including the parties’ final offers and
post-conference statements of position.

BACKGROUND

The Employer operates the Health Revenue Center, which
consists of two call centers, the Health Eligibility Center, where employees
respond to calls from veterans and their dependents concerning eligibility for
veteran’s benefits, and the First Party Billing Center, which handles
questions from veterans regarding invoices they have received from the VA. As of
April 19, 2006, the Union represents 249 non-professional employees who are part
of a nationwide consolidated bargaining-unit within the VA. About 90 percent of
bargaining-unit employees hold the position of contact representative, at the
GS-4 through -7 levels. The parties’ master collective-bargaining agreement (MCBA),
implemented in 1997, remains in effect. The parties do not have a local
supplemental agreement. Rather, they have nearly 20 Memoranda of Understanding (MOU)
that govern conditions of employment.

Prior to April 1, 2005, employees were represented by a
different AFGE local which also represented a bargaining unit of professional
employees at the Medical Center adjacent to the Health Revenue Center. One set
of officers and stewards represented both bargaining units. As a result of an
internal Union vote, Local 906 was established to represent only HRC employees.
Thereafter, a slate of Local 906 Union officers was elected: a president,
vice-president, and treasurer; and a chief steward and eight other stewards were
appointed. The decision to form a separate local led the Employer to initiate
negotiations over the amount of official time to be allocated for the new Union
officers and stewards.1/ With the exception of official time for the
local President, the parties have resolved official time allotments for all the
other elected officers as well as the appointed stewards. In this regard, the
parties agreed that these representatives would receive "reasonable amounts
of official time" to perform Union representational functions.

ISSUE

The sole issue in dispute is the amount of official time to
be allocated for the local Union president to perform representational duties.

POSITIONS OF THE PARTIES

1. The Employer’s Position

The Employer proposes to maintain the status quo,that
is, the local Union president would continue to receive the 40-percent official
time each week specified in Article 45 of the MCBA, with official time scheduled
for 16 hours per week.Anincrease in the amount of official time
for the local Union president is not justified because the size of the
bargaining unit remains relatively small, notwithstanding the increase from 120
employees in March 2005, to 249 employees as of April 2006. Moreover, the amount
of Union representational activity within the bargaining unit does not justify
an increase in official time. The Union represents a bargaining unit consisting
primarily of employees who have the same job title; as such, the Union is not
confronted with a broad range of issues or diverse working conditions that
otherwise may require Union representatives to utilize large amounts of official
time. Furthermore, an increase in the amount of official time for the Union
president is not warranted because statistics show that since August 2005 the
president has not even used the 40 percent currently allotted under the MCBA.
Finally, an increase in the Un